Judge Atticus Zenas has seen too much from his front-row seat in a Lexington, Kentucky family court. For ten years he has watched the slow-motion death of marriage. He has seen families fall apart, destroyed by abuse, neglect, drugs, divorce, crime, cruelty and indifference. As he struggles every day in court to pick up the pieces and protect helpless children, he is on the ragged edge of falling apart himself.